Whatever the form of autonomous vehicle, it will need to interact safely with pedestrians and cyclists too; a challenge that Ford are hoping to overcome in their vehicles.”

To which Dr Ken Washington, chief technology officer (CTO), Ford said: “Initially cyclists will have to be seen by the vehicle, and we are building perception into our autonomous vehicles that allows the autonomous vehicle to detect the cyclist object; understand their intent; to ensure that we can safely navigate in the same space.”

With some 30 million vehicles on our roads, it could be decades before its 100 per cemt safe for ‘the cyclist object’: increasing by the day, not least due to low incomes and increasing bus/rail fares, and currently being killed-off at a rate of two per week.

Accordingly, the speed limiters used in driverless cars, (available as a separate unit online), could/should be fitted to all bar emergency vehicles today.

Drivers have air bags etc, to save their lives. Equal rights and human rights surely dictate that, all vulnerable road users have speed limiters to save theirs! If we had an instant cure for cancer, at £100 a shot, it would sell out instantly.

Speed limiters amount to a cheap and instant cure for road death. In fairness: how can anyone object to speed limiters being used to save the lives of the fit, the healthy, the poor, and the disadvantaged, and indeed ‘the cyclist object’ cycling for Cancer Research?